For Marius

[rudderless]

[Sometime after this]

Eponine is fully braced for the eventuality of encountering Marius after her talk with Gavroche. Preparation cannot fully, however, brace her for the reality of it.

It's an ordinary day, and she's just moved back into her Milliways apartment after a holiday in the Below, when it finally does happen. Marius will note that she seems healthier, more robust, though her eyes...

...Well, those will stay the same.

Comments

[heartbeneathastone]

Marius, of course, is not the most observant young man in the world, and spends most of his time in Milliways, as at home, walking lost in his own thoughts, paying little attention to the people he passes. Seizing his attention may require direct action.

[rudderless]

Bless his head for being in the clouds. It saves him the sight of her gawking, her mouth moving soundlessly against the vowels of his name.

Again: the promise has not braced her for the fact.

"Marius?" The word finally leaves her lips, and she stops in her tracks, pulling at the trim of her silk sleeve, feeling ridiculous in her much-fancier-than-when-last-he-saw-her-dress.

[heartbeneathastone]

"Yes?" He turns.

Between her clothes, her health, and the fact that he, unlike her, has not been forewarned of her presence, it takes him a moment of looking to realize who he is seeing.

"--Eponine," he says, his voice very faint, his face gone very white.

[rudderless]

Once upon a time this would have shattered her. Literally turned her into dust and grind her under heel like she's nothing. Now that her life's less desperate - and that she knows he's married to Cosette - she can at least face him with bravery.

"Yeah, it's me," she says quietly. Then, with a crooked smile, "looks like you've seen a ghost."

She's quite aware that it's a terrible joke.

[heartbeneathastone]

Ha. He has almost grown used to seeing ghosts.

"You-- you look-- very well." And she does, and it is good to see.

[rudderless]

"Thanks to my brother," she says. "Gavroche takes excellent care of me. And you look...content."

She can nearly say it without a hint of poison.

[heartbeneathastone]

That is true, in general, though at present he looks faintly distressed. He suspects that is so, and says, "Pardon me. I do not know how to-- I-- I owe a debt to you I cannot repay." And to her family. But given how his conversation with Gavroche on that subject turned, he avoids it for the present.

[rudderless]

She cannot blame him. Eponine is actually pleased he's not fainted dead away on her. The statement causes her to shrug a bit, to laugh. "You're alive. It's payment enough."

He doesn't need to know what she nearly did, not when it turned out so well.

[heartbeneathastone]

"I cannot think my life is worth so much," he says before he can stop himself. It is an uncharitable sentiment, given-- everything, so he says again, "Pardon me."

[rudderless]

"To me it was," she admits. It's simple but it's also true.

[heartbeneathastone]

Marius lowers his eyes. Somehow, that makes him feel less worthy than before.

"Then all I can say is that I thank you."

[rudderless]

"Didn't do it just for the thanks," she admits. "I knew someone needed you."

Half truths all around, but she really doesn't want to admit to her own selfishness, even as she tries to outgrow it.

[heartbeneathastone]

"Well--" Well.

"If there is ever anything-- anything at all I may do for you, I hope-- I hope you will not hesitate to ask."

[rudderless]

A look of bittersweet pain filters across her features.

"Look out for Gav for me, then? If I'm ever not around. He may have another family now but..." Eponine does not, will not, trust in the kindness of strangers again.

[heartbeneathastone]

"It seems he has settled himself very well into this place," Marius says. "But yes, of course. I-- I owe a debt to all your family."

[rudderless]

She's immediately grateful that he doesn't (apparently) know about her father's various machinations.

"Thank you, Marius," she says. "I always thought you were the finest of men."

[heartbeneathastone]

This is true: he is not yet aware how little the man called Thenardier deserves the sense of obligation Marius feels towards him, and though Gavroche attempted to warn him, he will not be easily persuaded of it.

At Eponine's words, Marius blushes and lowers his eyes. "I little deserve such esteem. I regret a great deal about-- about that night, not least that I could not do more for you, could not help."

[rudderless]

Eponine will add her voices to the concern, should anyone mention to her what her father had done during her posthumous existence.

She does smile at what he says. "You did what I asked you to do, didn't you?"

She only knows about it because Gavroche told he what happened to the other her - the her that died in his arms.

[heartbeneathastone]

"Yes," he says quietly.

It must be, he supposed, some sign of profound weakness of spirit-- that at so little, at a single question, he finds his mind tumbling back into that haze of fevered grief, gunpowder and blood, Eponine there on the ground where she should not have been at all, and he there, too--

"Forgive me. I should go."

He only knows one solution to the onset of such thoughts, and that is Cosette. To simply be with her, near her, to think of the future instead of the past. But even he knows better than to say that here, now.

[rudderless]

Her smile is thin as she bobs a curtsy. Yes, she does know how to deliver one, and she gets out of his way with a jaunty salute.

It's so very odd to bear witness to him. Once she thought it would tear her apart, but now.

Now she can almost wave him by without the pain consuming her.